For its version of a card using Nvidia's newest graphics chipset, the GTX 560 Ti ($249 list, 3.5 stars), Zotac is branching out without going too far out on a limb. The card is part of the company's AMP! series, which means it's overclocked beyond Nvidia's reference speeds for additional performance. The price for the GeForce GTX 560 Ti AMP! is a bit higher ($264.99 list, about $15 more than Nvidia's reference price), but considering the card also comes with a download code for a free copy of Ubisoft's relatively recently released game, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, you'll get even more for your money than a moderately priced video card designed to give you juicier performance without squeezing your bank account dry.

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Zotac's card has a distinct and handsome appearance, its stark black lines and tangerine-colored mesh making it look even more futuristic than Nvidia's sleek reference design. The main change that's more than a matter of aesthetics, however, is the lack of a beveled interior edge, which Nvidia claims is to help with airflow in multicard setups.

Aside from this, however, the card features most of the same features as the Nvidia standard. The GF114 GPU, an updated version of the Fermi-based GF104 design used in the original GTX 460 ($199 list, 4.5 stars) last summer, is loaded with two Graphics Processing Clusters and Streaming Multiprocessors, which house a total of 384 CUDA processing cores, 64 Texture Units, and 32 ROP Units. The 256-bit memory interface also uses 1GB of GDDR5 memory, and the card itself is a respectable nine inches in length, requiring two adjacent PCI Express (PCIe) x16 slots, one of which will be blocked by the oversize heat sink and fan. To power the card you'll need to six-pin power connectors from your 500-watt-or-better PSU; you can output video via the two DVI ports or the single mini HDMI port.

Similar, too, compared to Nvidia's reference version are multiple types of transistors that make more efficient use of the power they need, an improved cooling system based on heat pipes (rather than the vapor chamber used in the GTX 580 and GTX 570), and onboard power monitoring to keep the card operating at safe levels when faced with apps particularly designed to tax it. And of course, Zotac's version supports the standard DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4.1, as well as Nvidia's core technologies: CUDA parallel processing, PhysX physics processing, and 3D Vision for stereoscopic 3D gaming, photos, and videos.

The biggest changes come in terms of the various internal clock speeds, which Zotac has nudged gently upward at the factory. The graphics clock, usually tuned to 822 MHz, is now rated at 950 MHz. The processor clock has been boosted from 1,644 MHz to 1,900 MHz. And the memory clock, original 4,008 MHz, is now 4,400 MHz.

How big a difference do these changes make? We saw our score in FutureMark's 3DMark 11 rise from 4,270 to 4,373 in the Performance preset (1,280 by 720) and from 1,403 to 1,447 in the Extreme (1,920-by-1,080) preset. Aliens vs. Predator went up one full frame per second (fps) at 1,680 by 1,050 (from 37.2 to 38.2) and slightly less at 1,920 by 1,200: 30.2 to 31. Far Cry 2, H.A.W.X. 2, Just Cause 2, Lost Planet 2, Metro 2033, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat saw similar climbs in their results, as well, all at the same resolutions. (Lost Planet 2 saw the biggest overall increases: from 40.5 to 42 at 1,680 by 1050, and from 35.4 to 36.8 at 1,920 by 1,200.)

These few extra frames per second, coupled with the gimme of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (which currently costs about $50 as a standalone purchase) helps tip the scales in the favor of the Zotac GeForce GTX 560 Ti AMP! Edition, rather than toward a less-expensive card with no extras and no overclocking. If you want to take advantage of the latest innovations in Nvidia video card technology, something like the AMP! version of the card is definitely the way to go for now.

Matthew Murray got his humble start leading a technology-sensitive life in elementary school, where he struggled to satisfy his ravenous hunger for computers, computer games, and writing book reports in Integer BASIC. He earned his...

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